The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 eBook

A Poet of less Judgment and Invention than this great
Author, would have found it very difficult to have
filled [these [7]] tender Parts of the Poem with Sentiments
proper for a State of Innocence; to have described
the Warmth of Love, and the Professions of it, without
Artifice or Hyperbole: to have made the Man speak
the most endearing things, without descending from
his natural Dignity, and the Woman receiving them
without departing from the Modesty of her Character;
in a Word, to adjust the Prerogatives of Wisdom and
Beauty, and make each appear to the other in its proper
Force and Loveliness. This mutual Subordination
of the two Sexes is wonderfully kept up in the whole
Poem, as particularly in the Speech of Eve I have
before mentioned, and upon the Conclusion of it in
the following Lines.

So spake our general Mother, and with
eyes
Of Conjugal attraction unreproved,
And meek surrender, half embracing lean’d
On our first father; half her swelling
breast
Naked met his under the flowing Gold
Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms
Smil’d with superior Love.—­

The Poet adds, that the Devil turned away with Envy
at the sight of so much Happiness.

We have another View of our first Parents in their
Evening Discourses, which is full of pleasing Images
and Sentiments suitable to their Condition and Characters.
The Speech of Eve, in particular, is dressed up in
such a soft and natural Turn of Words and Sentiments,
as cannot be sufficiently admired.

I shall close my Reflections upon this Book, with
observing the Masterly Transition which the Poet makes
to their Evening Worship in the following Lines.

Thus at their shady Lodge arriv’d,
both stood,
Both turn’d, and under open Sky,
ador’d
The God that made both [Sky,] Air, Earth
and Heaven,
Which they beheld, the Moons resplendent
Globe,
And Starry Pole: Thou also madst
the Night,
Maker Omnipotent, and thou the Day, &c.

Most of the Modern Heroick Poets have imitated the
Ancients, in beginning a Speech without premising,
that the Person said thus or thus; but as it is easie
to imitate the Ancients in the Omission of two or
three Words, it requires Judgment to do it in such
a manner as they shall not be missed, and that the
Speech may begin naturally without them. There
is a fine Instance of this Kind out of Homer, in the
Twenty Third Chapter of Longinus.

L.

[Footnote 1: From this date to the end of the
series the Saturday papers upon Milton exceed the
usual length of a Spectator essay. That they may
not occupy more than the single leaf of the original
issue, they are printed in smaller type; the columns
also, when necessary, encroach on the bottom margin
of the paper, and there are few advertisements inserted.]